The WIP Update

You've heard of the little foxes that spoiled the vines? Well my little mice have been spoiling my concentration!

I've been away from the WIP (work in progress) for six days and it shows. I had only a few pages to finish the third draft, but today I found myself reading words that made no sense about people I'd forgotten.

Well, not really, but all those stirrings and tuggings were gone. All those emotional threads that I usually carry from one day to the next managed to vanish while I was at the Florida Christian Writer's Conference.

The conference was super, BTW. Billie Wilson did a great job, as always, and this is one of the most "family-feeling" conferences you can attend. The weather was perfect, the conferees were enthusiastic, and my roomie, Martha Bolton, and I had a great time catching up.

But today my WIP suffered for it. So tomorrow I shall do "triage" (fix the bleeding wounds), and Thursday I will jump into the fourth draft, where things really get picky. The first half is in pretty good shape; it's the epiphany and ending that are rough. And they're rough because they're the most important part, the place where the character learns a lesson and makes a decision--the crux of the entire tale.

Plus . . . I think I might have picked up a bug of some sort at the conference. Last year I came home and went to bed with a case of the flu; hope I don't do that this year because I'm traveling to Ohio next week to speak at schools in the Cleveland area. (Update: I think the "bug" is just allergies. The oaks are molting again; everything is gold with oak dust. Ker-choo!)

So--as soon as I chat with the book club I'm supposed to call in half an hour, I think I shall get some sleep! After all, tomorrow is another day . . .

~~Angie